The DAP National Conference in Malacca in December will decide whether to relaunch the campaign for Democratisation and Full Liberalisation in Malaysia although the DAP suffered the worst electoral defeat in party history in last year’s national general elections which highlighted both these objectives as the main election platform.
The DAP’s results in the April 1995 general elections were the worst in the DAP’s 29-year history, causing a nation-wide trauma when the election results were announced and the people found that the DAP was nearly wiped out in Penang state, securing only one lone representation in the person of Sdri Chong Eng in Batu Lanchang, but that nation-wide, the DAP had been reduced to only nine Parliamentary seats.
Three months later, DAP’s nine Parliamentary seats were further reduced to eight, when the DAP MP for Bukit Bintang, Wee Choo Keong, was disqualified although he had been duly re-elected as MP; and what is worse, the voters of Bukit Bintang denied their constitutional right to elect the MP of their choice through a by-election when the defeated MCA candidate was declared MP for the constituency by the election court and wrote a different type of history by being the first person to enter Dewan Rakyat by the “back-door”!
Nationally, there was gloom as to the future of democracy in Malaysia, as Opposition representation in Parliament is now weakest in history (and will be even weaker when Parliament reconvenes on Oct. 14 as the six Parti Melayu Semangat 46 MPs would have left the Opposition benches to join UMNO ranks by then).
Inside the party, voices were raised questioning the wisdom and validity of the twin DAP general election objectives of Democratisation and Full Liberalisation - claiming that these were among the primary strategic errors which had contributed to the DAP electoral debacle.
However, in less than five months, on 9th September 1995, in the Bagan by-election caused by the untimely death of Sdr. P. Patto, the people of Bagan responded to the DAP call to rescue democracy and salvage the DAP’s general elections platform of Democratisation and Full Liberalisation, and the voters of Bagan rose to the occasion by giving the DAP a 11,802-vote majority - 100 times the majority won by the DAP the previous April. For this great feat for democracy, the voters of Bagan have rightly earned the title of “Kota Democracy” for Bagan!
Exactly one year after the Bagan by-election, on 8th September 1996, history was again written when another major stride for democracy was taken by the people of Sarawak who not only helped the DAP to achieve a great and historic breakthrough in the Sarawak state general elections for the first time in 18 years, but sent not one, but three DAP State Assemblymen to the Sarawak State Assembly.
When the history of democracy is written, I believe both the Bagan by-election on Sept. 9, 1995 and the Sarawak state general elections on Sept. 8, 1996 would be recognised as important milestones in the battle for democracy, particularly to rescue democracy from the dark aftermath of the unprecedented landslide victory of the Barisan Nasional giving the government not only two-thirds but the dangerous five-sixth majority in Parliament.
When I visited Sarawak this week, I found wherever I went, a new sense of joy and an air of liberation from throwing off the yokes of oppression from authoritarian rule though couched in democratic trappings with periodic elections. One can feel that there is now a springtime of freedom in Sarawak after two decades of long winter of discontent!
There is a great common theme underlying both the Bagan by-election and the DAP’s great and historic breakthrough in winning three State Assembly seats in the Sarawak state general elections is a common theme.
As in the 1995 national general elections, the voters were told that Malaysia cannot emulate the Western model of democracy or human rights, that Malaysia’s prosperity was precisely because we have struck out on our own unique path of political development avoiding the excesses and weaknesses of Western democracy, and that Malaysia’s economic success is the best justification for own model of democracy subsumed under the term “Asian Values”!
Voters were told, whether in the national general elections, the Bagan by-election or the Sarawak state general elections that they should choose between decadent Western democracy or “Asian Values”, between development or democracy, prosperity or freedom, stability or human rights.
The DAP had tried to pre-empt these false choices by highlighting the two great issues of Democratisation and Full Liberalisation in our general elections manifesto, but we failed.
The DAP’s electoral debacle in the national general elections is largely because of our failure to pierce the national euphoria created by a buoyant economy which registered over eight per cent annual growth continuously for over seven years and the “Minor Liberalisation” in government nation-building policies in language, education and culture.
However, the Barisan Nasional landslide electoral victory was taken by the Barisan Nasional leaders as a vindication of its rejection of Western model of democracy and acceptance of “Asian Values” democracy with severe restrictions on civil and political liberties; while DAP detractors, both inside and outside the party, argue that DAP’s failure was because of the irrelevance of the DAP’s general elections platform on the ground that there had been no “minor liberalisation” at all, but only “false liberalisation”!
Be that as it may, the Bagan by-election and the Sarawak state general elections have corrected these misconceptions, for their common underlying theme was the loud and clear message by the people that they want both development and democracy.
The Western model of democracy cannot be accepted wholesale, as it has its weaknesses, such as the overexcesses of individualism resulting in the breakdown of the family unit. But the Asian Values school of democracy is also unacceptable if it seeks merely to use the forms of democracy to perpetuate authoritarian rule by suppressing civil and political rights.
One good example of the latter is the claim by the Sarawak Chief Minister, Tan Sri Taib Mahmud in the Sarawak state general elections that democracy in the state had differed from the Western model to the extent that there was no need for an Opposition at all, asking “What is there to oppose?”!
The DAP is very encouraged by the results of the Bagan by-election and the Sarawak state general elections, which seem to signal that the time has come for a major campaign of Democratisation and Full Liberalisation, to espouse a third road of democracy which avoids the excesses of Western democracy and the authoritarianism of “Asian Values” Democracy.
At the present stage of Malaysia’s political development, our biggest problem is not the excesses of overindividualism of Western democracy, but the suppression of civil and political rights of “Asian Values” Democracy, as in the denial of fundamental freedoms of speech, expression, assembly, a free and independent press, the right to information, greater government accountability and transparency to curb malpractices, corruption, abuses of power; meaningful citizenry participation in the democratic decision-making to shape our destiny whether at national, state or local government level; and meaningful elected Parliament, State Assemblies and Municipal Councils.
If Malaysia is to achieve the Vision 2020 objective of being a world-class nation, with a culture of excellence and a world-class quality of life, then Democratisation and Full Liberalisation are the two-preconditions for their success.
This is because it is only through democratisation and full liberalisation of nation-building policies that the full talents and potentials of a multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-religious nation could find real flowering.
From the sixties to the eighties, the DAP had to fight a long and uphill battle with many leaders paying great personal sacrifices just to secure recognition that Malaysia is not a “one language, one culture, one religion” country, but a nation of many languages, cultures and religions.
In those years, Malaysia’s multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-religious characteristics were regarded as weaknesses and liabilities to the nation-building process, but today, they are beginning to be appreciated as the greatest assets of Malaysia!
But such appreciation is still too limited and grudging, and that is why there is only “Minor Liberalisation” and not “Full Liberalisation” of nation-building policies.
Malaysia will be poised to become a world-class nation if the dual objectives of full liberalisation and democratisation are accepted as national policy, and this is what the DAP and all Malaysians who had loyally supported the DAP in the past three decades should dedicate ourselves to achieve in the 21st century - to make Malaysia a giant in the world.
(5/10/96)